Covid and isolation.

 At this point in time I just want to remind everyone that the covid isolation is a very real thing.  You may think it is just a phenomenon, but it is very real.  As a society we are heat seeking missles, but now that our nation is forced into isolation we find ourselves left to our own devises and they are not always healthy or correct.  Imagine, if you will having covid, and being alone day after day in your home.  Someone may very well drop off groceries, or medicine or call for a brief visit, but you are virtually alone.  All day.  Every day.

At what point do the days start to run together and you question what day it actually is and how many days have you been alone?  I am asking everyone who reads this to pick up your phone.  Call a friend that you know is alone and let them hear the sound of another human voice.  It does not need to be a long conversation.  Just touch base.  Let them know they are not alone.  You never know when you may be the one brief glimpse across the abyss of a very lonely person.  Just to know that there is another person out there is sometimes all it takes.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that anyone wants to be totally alone for days on end. If they want to be alone they can ignore the ringing phone, but do not make that choice for them.  Give them the chance.  I am sure you all know someone who could use a short hello how are you.  

Covid will be with us for a very long time and we all need to take care of each other even if it is just a short hello.  Do it for yourself.  Do it for your neighbor.  Do it for the hell of it!  The life you save may be your own.

And now it is over.

 

All the bluster and hype and worry and wonder is behind us.  For all the cries of sabotage and cheating still echoing in the wind,  all the votes are now now counted and entered in the book.   There is a winner and there is a loser.  It always happens that way, doesn't it?  The red people worked hard and the blue people worked hard, and Kanye West had his moment of fame.  Now in 3 short months we will have a new president.  We have a shot at doing it right this time.  This happens every 4 years, with one difference.

I can not say that I will miss the Donald, because I never liked him in the first place.  I always thought he was a charlatan who padded the payrolls of his kids with "stay busy work" in the white house.  But this is not about that either because if I were in his position, I would help my kids in the same way. His wife just pretty much stayed out of the way unless he needed her to decorate his arm.  This is about the Democratic Party and the part they play in the government.

(I must interject here that I think my cat is a democrat.  Right now she is laying half on the keyboard and half on my lap.  This makes it very hard to type, but it is where she chooses to be and will bite me if I try to move her.  That's how Democrats are; they do not like change.)

See, Democrats are pretty laid back and do not really want to make waves.  As a whole we are peace loving souls and have the live and let live attitude. If we have a President who just leaves us alone, lets us be at peace, we are good to go.  We believe in equal rights for everyone. We do not want anyone to go hungry and everyone should have a bed at night where they are safe.  An honest days pay for an honest days work. Peace and love and seeing a doctor when the body malfunctions is good.  If my husband is woman, that is my business.  Climate change is real.  The earth is a global community and we are all responsible to care for mother earth.  Sadly, Donald Trump did not understand that!

He began to slowly whittle away at our world.  Other countries  leaders began to pull away.  Environmental laws were lifted.  Russia was our friend.  There is an old saying, "No man is an island unto himself."  That is very true and as the man lost his grip on reality he pushed us further into a corner.  We woke up to the fact that we would soon be right back where we started. And thus began the forming of the Big Blue Wave!

It has long been known that Democrats are lackadaisical in voting and tend to support whoever is popular at the time.  But when push comes to shove and we are threatened with our rights and privileges being lost, we come out of our caves and suburbs and bond together in a way that makes a difference and when we come together with Republicans who know that their leader is not interested in the well being of America, we are unstoppable.  The days of Jim Crow are over.  The days of flying the confederate flag are over.  The days of our sons and daughters being shamed for who the love are over.  And Donald Trump can sue and count votes the rest of his life, but America has spoken!

I do not think Joe Biden really wanted to be President, but we needed a leader and he was experienced under the Great Barak Obama!  So he was it.  His choice of Kamala Harris further solidified the deal.  That woman is perfect in that she covers all the race and gender cards and more than that is a caring compassionate human being.  The fact that she is drop dead gorgeous is an added bonus.

So peace to all.  In a few short months Joe and Kamala will smile and wave to us from the front door of the white house and if there is a God, soon the Rose Garden will be restored.  In the mean time, I will sleep better at night knowing compassion will soon be restored to our land.

Opinions are just like a--holes; everyone has one.

 and most of them stink!  I just turned off the news.  I have turned everything off and it will stay that way the rest of the day.  Today is election day.  Normally I am all a twitter and anxious to see who will rule over me for the next four years, but this year is different.  For most of my life I was a registered Independent and mostly voted Republican.  That all changed way back when Amendment 2 was up for adoption in the state of Colorado.

Normally when I see the words "Shall there be an amendment to the constitution...." it incites something in me to say yes.  Not so with this one.  A yes vote basically removed any protections that my gay friends were allowed to enjoy.  It cleared the way for open discrimination against them for job security, rental of a place to live, marriage and any protection in anything and everything that you and I take for granted.  In order for my fiends to have any basic protection for anything, I had to vote "no."  Sadly there were a lot of people who voted yes and some of them knew what they were voting at the time.  To make a long story short, it passed with a very strong yes vote.  To make it even shorter, we went to the supreme court and it was declared unconstitutional and we all lived happily ever after. (Well, not really, but at least that part was removed.)

But so began my journey into the arena of politics and the need to have my vote mean something.  Today when some one brings up politics, my first question is "Are you registered and do you vote?" If the answer is "No, because my one vote will not make a difference", then we have the talk about one drop of rain in a bucket is nothing, but 6 million drops will flood your ass!"  You register your car.  You register (hopefully ) your gun.  You need to register your wants and desires with the state and federal government.

Voting, to me, is a sacred right.  With my vote I sent the first man of color to be my president.  With my vote, I overturned gay discrimination.  And with my vote I can raise or lower my taxes.   I can require that you have insurance on your car and that your dog has a license.  I can change the county, state, and federal laws.  I can put the man in the White House to rule over my country.  But if I don't vote, I am screwed!

If I don't vote I have no right to bitch about how the rest of the country voted.  So I do.  It may not be much and it may not be the man (or woman) that I wanted, but it is the one the majority of the people chose and I can live with that.  Or at least I think I can.  We will see.

I may not agree with the choices you make, but I will defend to the death your right to make them.

Peace to all.

A trip to a dark place in my past.

 It has been over 65 years since I thought of Jimmie.  He holds no significance in my life except that he was there for a brief period.  I was 17 years  old and ready for my life to begin.  I was ready for love and love seemed to be everywhere.  The years of the 16 and 17 year old Louella were all about exploration, and mostly dancing and finding someone to call my own.  Some one who would love me forever.  The boys were plentiful back then and they were just as innocent and just as eager as the girls.  Sex had not yet reared it's head on our horizon.  Oh there was the occasional stolen kiss and the fumbled attempts at "copping a feel", but that was as far as it went.  Most of the dates were "double dates", because very few of the boys had access to a car back then.

And then came Jimmie.  Jimmie was older.  Jimmie had been in the Army.  Jimmie had a car.  He was the cool boy who stood on the sidelines with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth.  It was rumored that he had a wife and son back in England.  That just added to the mystic of Jimmie.  Sadly it very soon became common knowledge that Jimmie was the love 'em and leave 'em kind.  Pretty little teenagers following him with their red eyes soon became a common sight at the record hop.  And then he looked my way!  

He took me to his house to meet his mom and sister.  He showed me a picture of his wife and son.  Looking back in retrospect, I am not sure it was anything but a picture from a magazine, but it added to the legend that was Jimmie.  He did not appear old enough to have spent a lot of time in the Army, but he said it so that made it so.  I, of course, was holding my sexual favors back in hopes of a wedding ring.  I sure did not want to be one of the sad little creatures watching him from afar.  He soon tired of me.  And as time would tell, God above smiled on me the day he broke my heart.  I had given him a picture to put on the dash of his car and he threw it out the window explaining to me that I was too immature for him.

Jimmie quit coming to the dances.  No one seen him, but we heard through the grapevine that he was working out of town and he gradually faded from our memories we all moved on.

When I married and moved out of town and began my own family, mother kept me up on all the gossip.  She sent newspaper clippings  of happenings that involved the circle of friends that she knew I hung out with.  One day there was a clipping about a nurse who lived in a trailer outside of town with her husband and two small children.  Someone had come to her trailer while her husband was at work and killed her two children and thrown them into the field.  He then raped her.  He did not kill her.  They had a lead as to his identity.  It was Jimmie.

I am sure people back home remember the headlines.  I do not remember all the details of the trial, but he was definitely the same Jimmie I knew and he was definitely guilty.  I could google it and find out, but I do not care.  I only know how lucky my friends and I were that we had all dated him and we were all alright.  This just goes to show that mother was right about another thing.  She always said "You never know anyone, you only know OF  them.  You know what they let you see."

That happened 65 years ago and I read about it at some point in time, but God in his wisdom left me untouched.  Not just me, but many of my friends.  This is something I have not thought about for many, many years, but today I thank God for bringing me through a lot of valleys to this wonderful life I now live in Pueblo. Colorado!

Brings me to this song which pretty much says it all.  Unanswered Prayers

That is an arachnid.

 And when I start screaming and clawing at the front of your shirt and trying to crawl on top of your head, it is called arachnophobia.   And yes it is a very real mental condition, and yes it can be controlled.  Death of the human suffering this condition will cure it, pretty much. How do I know it is real?  Stick with me here for just a bit.

Now, many of you know me.  You know that I fear nothing.  I have walked through the very fires of hell and came out the other side smiling.  Now that might be an exaggeration, but I have seen my scary things in life and for the most part been unaffected.  I can see a snake slithering into the goose house and still manage to go in and do my chores.  The only snakes I kill are the ones who get aggressive with me and that only happened the one time.   (Course that can also be said for a few husbands who were not smart enough to know when to stop.)

When I came to Colorado I was married to a guy named Charlie and he had a son who was pretty much grown.  Of course, they wanted to show me the high spots of Colorado and one of them is Beulah.  Since we had a two door car and they were both big, Susie and I were in the back seat when we were coming down from Beulah.  Suddenly Charlie pulled over and stopped.  There was a tarantula crossing the road and heading into the ditch.  When I saw the size of that thing, my eyes glazed over and purple lightening was flashing inside my head.  

Now, a note here to my friends in Kansas.  These things are BIG!  I swear to God that one had to be a foot across!  It had teeth!  It was looking at me in the back seat.  It wanted to eat me.  When David started to open the door to "get it and take it home for a pet" my world went suddenly black.  I shit you not!  I had both of those guys by the collar and raised up out of the seat.  At that point they decided they really did not need a spider for a pet.  I still have flashbacks when I think of that day.

Years passed and I never encountered another spider of that size until I married Kenneth.  One evening  after supper Jackie and Jim walked into our house.  Jimmy carried a paper cup and had something to show me.  I knew!  Instinct kicked in and I told him not to do it, but being the California boy he was, he was proud of his catch and wanted to show me.  When he dumped that spider out on my table, I lost all sense of reason.  The next thing I clearly remember is him begging me to forgive him.  Here to tell you right now he is still on thin ice.  Ask him about it.  Today we can look back and laugh, but that took a year or so.

And now I do not even think about tarantulas, unless something kicks in and triggers me.  Hiking at the reservoir the other day was a challenge to me because it is breeding season and they are migrating to the breeding grounds.  Oh, dear God!  My hiking partner was quick to tell me that  if we saw one he would not catch it and he understood I would not like  a closer look.  And no he would not kill it just because it wanted to go in the bushes and have a little spider fun.  Watching for rattlesnakes was not an issue, but the thought of beady eyed spiders became one!  Luckily the man did not have to witness my descent into total paranoia!

So there you have it.  The worst things I had to contend with in Kansas were millipedes.  They are about an inch or so long and have millions of legs.  They scurry up the wall and then hide so you can not kill them.  The spiders are mostly granddaddy long legs.  Couse the Black Widow likes to build a web in your basement window and hatch out her babies.  The Black Widows with babies are always females because they eat their husband after sex.   Preying Mantis females eat their husbands head off after sex.  Gives a whole new meaning to "losing your head over a woman!"

So, now you have learned a new word, arachnophobia, and a little lesson on the sex life of those innocent looking little insects that inhabit our earth.  Just remember this:

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!

Peace!

Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

With age comes wisdom, or so I hear.  Mother used to say that and I do believe there is some truth to it.  Maybe it isn't so much that we are wiser now, but that we have just come to think of all the crap we digest as inevitable.  

Of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most.  Now that one is sad but true!  I do know that with age comes wisdom.  I also know that is a crock if ever I heard one.  With age comes wrinkles!  With age comes a mind that is full of wisdom and no markers on how to retrieve any of that knowledge.  It is having friends and the constant struggle to remember who they are and how to get in touch with them.  It is slowing down on stairs and knowing I am always just one stair step away from the nursing home.  Old age sucks, it really does but I guess it is better then the alternative which is dying young.  Or so I hear.

This picture of my mother sets on the shelf right above my head.  She is always with me and sometimes I can hear her goading me.  She had a very wry and twisted sense of humor and I do believe I inherited that.  Now whether that is a good thing or not , I am not able to say.  I do know when I am sad she talks to me and when I am happy her little red cheeks show signs of a smile.  I am not sure I ever heard my mother laugh.  I like to think she did and her and I shared a lot of the same values, except for that Rush Limbaugh stuff.  I did subscribe to his newletter and paid for it to be delivered to her house, but that was about the length of that.  Below her picture is  a snippet of my sisters.  Sadly there are only two of us left, another of the hazards of growing old.  The good part though is that Donna is the only one that can dispute the memory of mama and she is 400 miles away.  Mama always loved me most!!!

This is the last picture I see when I go out my front door.  The lower left corner  is mama with her favorite child (ME).  The right corner is mama 50 years old.  And of course in the back is the mama I remember after I moved to Colorado. 

I like to think of my mama.  I loved her very much.  I am not sure she was ever proud of me.  If she was she never said it out loud to me.  I do know she liked my cooking.  When she came for a visit she carried a list in her pocket of what she wanted me to cook for her.  Tomato Soup made with fresh canned tomatoes from my garden...NOT Campbells.  Cream puffs.  Liver and onions.  Cinnamon rolls.  Fried potatoes.  She wanted to set in my rocker and watch the Hummingbirds.  She liked to stand at the island where my stove is and question every move I made in the meal preparation and was quick to tell me that was not the way she did it, but she was the first one to the table and the last one to leave.

Do we ever grow old enough that we do not miss our mommy?   I think not.  I guess I do have the satisfaction of knowing that someday my kids will remember me fondly.  Want to know how I know this?  I made the remark one time about a person who had disappointed me.  And she told me that one about not knowing someone. "You never really know anyone, you only know of them; the part they let you see."  The old Indians used to say, "Do not judge a man until you have walked a mile in his moccasins."  I remember lots of things.  I remember the time my sister came home from a date with her dress on wrong side out.

October has started.  Today is October 6 and yesterday was my brothers birthday.  In 24 days it will be the anniversary of his death.  He was 28 when he was killed in a car wreck.  He left behind 2 sons.  I never knew them.  Mom did.  Or at least she knew the older one.  His name was David Payne Andersen (I think).  The other one was Edward Howell Hamby (I think).  The important thing here is that October is probably the hardest month of the year for me.  October is the birth month of 2 of my kids as well as the anniversary of the day I married their father.  

Just bear with me here, because this too shall pass.  The sun will come out tomorrow!  Tomorrow is another day.  At least we have that to look forward to.  Or do we?

Three legged pot and the best thing to come from corn.

 I was watching PBS yesterday and I forget the guys name, but he was back in Pennsylvania or some where in an Amish community about heritage or something.  (Try to remember that you are dealing with someone who checks the date 45 times a day to just be sure it is actually today!)  Any way, the center of the courtyard in this community was a 3 legged kettle.  I think I have written on that before, but just in case I will sum it up again.  

The 3 legged kettle is a big cast iron pot (for lack of a better word) that set in the back yard near the water source, which in our case was a hand pump.  Water for washing clothes was heated by building a fire around the bottom.  Course it took a while to heat, but back then the laundry was an all day job.  Wash the clothes, rinse the clothes, second rinse the clothes and then hang them on the clothes line to dry and hope the birds did not poop on them.  Our clothes line was in back of the house as was most peoples.  That led to the old adage, "Don't air your dirty laundry!"  The same kettle was used to "scald a hog " when it was butchering time.  

Dammit!  I digress!  This lesson was about making hominy.  Mother used to make hominy so I was familiar with the process, sort of anyway.  First the field corn had to be completely dry.  It was then "shucked" which in this instance is removing the dried kernels from the cob. Of course, the cobs were saved for use in the "outhouse" which is a whole 'nuther blog.  Just be aware that the cobs that were red were the softest in case you ever need to know!

The loose kernels were put in the pot of water with the fire burning underneath.  This was an all day job and as it cooked it needed to be stirred regularly.  A very long wooden paddle was used for this.  As it cooked it swelled.  Dry corn takes a long time to cook with a simmering fire outside.  As it simmered it released the hard core of the corn.  After due time mother added lye which raised the water temperature higher than any fire would raise it.  We continued to stir, but at this time we needed to skim off the hard stuff that was coming out of the corn.  The important thing to remember at this time was not to let any water touch our skin because it would burn us bad.  While the lye back then was made from the soft gray ash of hard wood, usually hickory, it was still caustic.  

Fresh water was added and we now used a sort of dipper with only tiny holes so when we scooped we got water along with debris.  When at long last the water was clear the corn, which was now soft and fat was dipped out and put in the center of a large piece of cheese cloth.  This was hung on the clothes line to hang in the sun until it was dry.  I am assuming that from there it went to the root cellar.  I do not remember.  I do think that a some point it was also dried and made into grits.  Grits are ground hominy.  I only like yellow grits.  (My friend Sherman only liked white grits, but that is another story.)

Looking back, it sure seemed like an awful lot of work for very little product, but that was the whole point of life back then.  We worked all summer to fill the root cellar with stuff to keep us alive through the winter.  Sweet potatoes were a staple because they kept better than white potatoes.  And Apples!  My God it seemed like everyone in the world blessed us with apples in the fall.  Apples kept well in the root cellar and we had them all winter!  Fresh apples, fried apples, baked apples, stuffed apples, apple pie, apple sauce! But the best apple of all was my mother!  She was the apple of my eye!  (Little humor there!)

So bid the farmstead fare thee well for now.  I think that is an old German saying.  Instead of saying goodbye, Grandma always said "fare thee well" which means " good wishes to you at parting." 

Peace and prosperity to you all and may you never have to cook your dried up corn again!